Category: Earth Day

The Climate Action Festival brought together students, speakers, community members and over 20 environmental and community organizations along with art, music and activities to celebrate and inspire action!

As the 45th annual Earth Day, this was an opportunity to rethinktraditional “environmental” concerns and bring together broader social and environmental justice issues that are so intricately tied together (and that make up the foundation of our EcoDistrict). Along with speeches by Denis Hayes, the co-founder of Earth Day, K.C. Golden, 350 Chair, and organizers from Got Green?, the mayor also announced the launch of a new Seattle Equity and Environment Initiativeto better address the intersection of these critical issues.

The original vision and goal of Earth Day was to bring people together to inspire and initiate collective action to address some of our most pressing social and environmental concerns. Today those challenges are greater than ever and taking adequate and effective action can often seem more than daunting. Stepping up to take action–no matter how small–is vital; sometimes getting connected to the right campaign, organization or other individuals is all it takes! This event was a reminder of the energy, vitality, creativity and diversity of our neighborhood, our city and the people that are actively working to make progress. As the Earth Day motto this year points out,it’s our turn to lead.

The EcoDistrict was one of the organizations tabling and helping to support this event, as we believe neighborhood solutions are key to overall climate action. As a recent Shareable article on Earth Day says:

“Creating stronger, friendlier, more engaged communities is not a sideshow in the urgent cause of saving the planet; it is a central strategy. Because, when people connect, roll up their sleeves, and get down to work protecting the places they care about, anything is possible. There’s a whole world of people out there ready to dream big and then put it into action.”